Duddy Darling
by Nitrogen
Summary: Well, I felt sorry for Dudley, who doesn't have many fics devoted to him...so, a product of too much spare time. R/R!


**Disclaimer**: No. I am not JK Rowling, for those of you who thought I was, and Dudley Dursley, Harry Potter, the rest of the Dursleys, and anybody you remember from the books, are not mine. Walt, Smoke, and co., however, ARE mine. 

Please review—this is just a little fic created out of pure and utter boredom, so feel free to attack it with helpful (ahem. I DID say helpful) criticism and comments. Well, read and enjoy! Or not, but read anyway!

            Dudley Dursley lay on his bed in his first bedroom, pondering the mysteries of life and cousins. The youngest of the Dursleys had recently had a growth spurt, and at sixteen years Dudley cared enough about his looks that he had obeyed his diets, he had exercised, and while nowhere near thin, seventeen-year-old Dudley Dursley was tall, well-built, muscular, and—handsome. He was no longer the round ball of Dursley that he had once been—and he had found that he liked this new development.

            Yes, life was shaping up for Dudley at Smeltings, but not at home. In fact, the young man was counting the days until he went back to his school.

            He couldn't wait.

            He raised himself on his elbows to watch from his second-floor window as his cousin, Harry Potter, and another red-haired young man hefted his trunk into the black car, and then Harry climbed in himself. Dudley sank back down on the pillows, grimacing—he wished, right now, that he  were Harry Potter, with friends like Harry had, and a chance like his seventeen-year-old cousin had to get away from the Dursley household on Privet Drive. Dudley had lived there all his life, but only when he came back from his first year at Smeltings did he start to realize the restrictions of his home, and at fifteen he'd begun to envy Harry, too.

            _Magic!_ Magic was something that one read about (for Dudley had also started reading, as a chance to get away from his life, during his first summer after Smeltings; he had just had to make sure that Father never saw him, seeing as books were something Dudley's father disapproved of almost as much as magic) but Dudley had never thought it to have any basis on reality. And now it turned out that it did indeed have quite a basis on reality, that Cousin Harry Potter himself was a wizard.

            And Dudley, for once in his life, did not have more power than Harry. The blond young man shook his head slightly and rose from his bed, with the vague idea of going to see his friend, Walt Namrea, who lived on their street—Dudley had met him at Smeltings, back when his only friend was Piers, a rat if ever there was one. As a matter of fact, Dudley had made quite a few good friends there—he was quite popular, particularly after he lost weight, he'd noticed. Walt was his best friend, and the one person who knew all about Harry, and Dudley's real feelings for his parents. They were the two cleverest boys in the class (Vernon Dursley had gotten quite a surprise when Dudley's grades turned from D's to straight A+'s in his fourth year, after Dudley had decided to stop pleasing his father and use his brain for once) and constantly vied for the best grades and the greatest prizes.

            "Duddy darling! Dinnertime!" Petunia Dursley's voice rang out high and shrill, and Dudley winced. His mother had never really dropped 'Duddy', a nickname which Dudley now HATED—to the Smeltings boys, he was "Dud," and Dudley much preferred that one. Smeltings tended to give birth to odd names, or just plain shortenings: 'Dud', 'Walt' (his real name, as he had confidingly told the boys—and was promptly given the nickname Walt—was Walter George Phillip; his mother insisted on calling him 'Walter George Phillip', and not just Walter), 'Smoke', (Dudley's other best friend, a short boy who got in trouble with all the teachers and broke all the school rules; he smoked, he drank, and was altogether just about the worst boy of the lot, but most of the boys tolerated him anyhow, and with Dudley and Walt, it extended to friendship) one Zachary Samuel Okeran, and others.

            "All right, I'm coming!"  Dudley called back, stalling for time as he shoved _It Can't Happen Here_, a book that his father would especially disapprove of, seeing as it was both American, and by Sinclair Lewis, under the bed. Vernon Dursley, in the event that he did come up to Dudley's room, wouldn't think to look there. Dudley's lip curled involuntarily. "Doesn't think at all." He muttered, and slowly made his way down the stairs before his mother could call him again. Well, he'd visit Walt later.

            Dudley's father was already there, and he looked up as his son entered. "Marge's coming in on the late train tomorrow morning." He grunted.

            Dudley held back a groan and nodded, keeping his face studiously bland. His father's sister was one person that Dudley hated even more than his father himself, and that was saying something. Marge spoiled him tremendously, but that was not necessarily a good thing—particularly as she was just as bulky and even ruder than Father. He sat down in his seat and glanced up at his mother, who was just setting down the last pot and sitting down herself. Petunia Dursley would have been beautiful in almost all interpretations of the word, had her personality not interfered; then again, she had married Vernon Dursley.

            Who needed beauty then?

            But he knew that his mother hated Vernon, as his father had cheerfully asked Dudley to call him, in an odd, twisted way. And Dudley saw, in the little looks she gave him when she thought he was not looking, that she could not love him, either; so Petunia made up for this by spoiling him, and she was known by all as a loving mother—perhaps too much so. But Dudley knew that she could never forgive him for the months when she had lost her stick-skinny look in her pregnancy, and the pain—and for the inability to get a divorce from Dudley's father, as she couldn't bear to have Dudley have a troubled life.

            Troubled life indeed, for a boy she hated! Dudley had never been able to see the logic of this thought, but his mother's face—to all others, opaque—was transparent as glass to him, and he knew her thoughts—knew them, and did not understand.  

            Harry had never known this, and he had never guessed at the sadness—the longing—that was in Petunia Dursley's glances as they followed him; even, sometimes, a fleeting fondness that she never could quite commandeer for Dudley. He knew that they were both living a life of partial deception for Vernon, but he did nothing. Dudley never did anything, however much he wanted to; he never yelled at Vernon, he never helped Harry Potter out more than he could with quiet suggestions to Harry's uncle, he never stormed out of the room after giving his father a piece of his mind. He spoke as little as possible to this father that he both respected, somehow, and hated, and in his mind the quiet rebellion took place.

            Never aloud. Never when Vernon Dursley could see. 

            "Dudley?" Petunia's expression was worried. "Is Duddykins feeling sick?"

            He looked up, and realized that he had not touched his food. He shook his head numbly, muttering something along the lines of "'m fine," picked up his fork, and disinterestedly poked at the potatoes on his plate, to make her feel better.

            Vernon, meanwhile, had started in on his favorite subject (other than drills, at least): current events. As his father droned on about the inefficient British Rail, and what he would do to fix it if he could, Dudley's mind drifted off again as he ate.

---------

            When Dudley had finally obtained leave to go upstairs to his room, pleading homework (which, incidentally, he had already finished) he found both Walt and Smoke there, Walt lying down on Dudley's bed in much the same position Dudley had occupied before, and Smoke perched quite precariously on the back of his chair, busily copying his homework down. Dudley had the sense to peek out through the door—a glance satisfied him that both Vernon and Petunia were safely down in the living room—and then to slam and lock the door shut.

            "Walt. Smoke. What the bloody hell d'you think you're doing here?" Dudley crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at them. He was rather curious as to how they'd gotten in, anyhow, but he knew Smoke well enough not to let on that he didn't know, yet.

            Walt flipped himself into a sitting position and grinned at the blond boy. "Ahhh, Smoke, I don't think ol' Dud wants us in here."

            Smoke grinned at Dudley, too, his blue eyes gleaming wickedly under his long reddish-brown hair. "Downright rude." He agreed.

            Curiosity getting the better of him, Dudley raised his eyebrows (Walt could raise a single eyebrow, a talent which Dudley envied him endlessly). "Spill the beans. How did you get in here?"

            "The door, how else?" Walt said innocently, nodding over to the wall. Dudley, suspiciously, turned towards it—and noted that it was _not _a wall any longer: it was, instead, a door. It was, in fact, a very _nice_, wooden door, by Dudley's standards, but it was still a door, which had once been a wall.

            He sighed. "What now?" 

            "What does it look like?" Smoke looked particularly excited, even more fidgety than he usually was, and that was saying something.

            "A door?" Dudley guessed, stating the obvious on purpose; he knew it irritated both Walt and Smoke when he did that.

            "Ah, quiet, you sot. Well, watch this." Grinning broadly, Smoke hopped off the chair (it fell down, but nobody noticed) and waved his hand elaborately at Dudley's bedside lamp; and then it was a lamp no longer, but instead a music box that was, to Dudley's surprise, playing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Smoke liked Mozart, and fiercely insisted that he was _much_ better than Beethoven, so Dudley was secretly rather amused.

            Walt snorted. "Dud, don't listen to that bloody _idiot_. You don't need to wave your hand…" Walt made no motion, but suddenly Walt was lying on, not a bed, but an oversize beanbag.

            Dudley had to remind himself to shut his mouth, and to stop backing away. "Well? Sleight of hand, what?" 

            Walt snorted. "No. 'Member you told us about that cousin of yours? Well, I wasn't sure I believed the magic part, but now…" The graceful boy shrugged elaborately.

            Dudley looked at him quizzically. "How do you do it?"

            "Just think about it. Smoke says he can _sense _when other people can do it—he did for me—and he says you're the only other person in the world who can." Walt grinned to illustrate just how silly and book-like he thought _that_ notion, but Smoke wasn't smiling anymore—he was looking at Dudley, intently.

            Dudley, feeling stupid, concentrated on the little model soldier Aunt Marge had given him, which he put up on the desk when she came home so that she would never suspect that, during the year, he stuffed it with the rest of her presents under the bed. As he had intended, it turned into a sheep—and Dudley was amazed at the amount of effort needed, or lack thereof. 

            Smoke nodded affirmatively. "See?"

            Dudley nodded, thoughtfully, and as a second thought he turned the sheep back into a model soldier, stopping it mid-bleat, and placed it back on the desk that it had fallen off of.

            But before the three boys could discuss it further, the doorbell rang downstairs, and Dudley could hear Petunia calling "Who's there?" and then, a moment later, somebody knocked at his door.

Yes, this is a weird story. Then again, I've always felt somewhat sorry for ickle Duddykins, so—the result! None of this is likely to happen, of course.


End file.
